


Midst the Stars

by Ozma



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Ascian, DubCon in a tempering way, F/M, Power Imbalance, Tempering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-05
Updated: 2020-08-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:55:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25719931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ozma/pseuds/Ozma
Summary: 5.0, FemWoL;After defeating Innocence, the Warrior of Darkness is broken, the First's light spilling from her.  To save the fragment, she flees to the Source, encountering the only remaining individual capable of aiding her.
Relationships: Elidibus/Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Zodiark/Warrior of Light
Comments: 14
Kudos: 43





	1. The First Sacrifice

**Author's Note:**

> This is a commission for JanuaryBlue.   
> Aether sex in chapter 2.

The Lightwarden falls and, at the height of the star, Gulg's spire gleams; blessed with the sky's newfound clarity, Kholusia sprawls at your feet – yet all within sight is shrouded only in the lightless white of despair. If Vauthry’s are the Heavens, then the tithe offered to Thal’s servants is in vain.

There is no peace to be found here.

Molten golden serenity burns blinding – gold like a coin, like a Sin Eater's wings or halo - like an Ascian’s eyes - and is tarnished only by the brunette locks of the man kneeling before you.

Emet-Selch’s lips move, yet the winds carry little sound. In a world stilled, trembles wrack your frame; experience whispers that muscles lacking further capability of supporting weight should burn, yet you know naught save cold numbness, scouring your veins like a prolonged frost's heavy bite. More from instinct than reason, your stomach heaves and your sight blurs; brown and gold – red and _white_ , so much white – vague senses blur together, indistinct and secondary to a _nothingness_ borne deeply enough to drive lesser individuals to madness.

Even through sight unseeing, you know of the smirk gracing his lips: the Ascian mocks your failure – or perhaps laments it, the difference makes no matter – and soon he will obtain his goal.

_A disappointment._

These are the limitations of your flesh – a vessel overtipped and unable to hold itself together through Light’s expulsion. Desperation guides futile attempts at stymieing the aether’s course – a withering passage that decays tissue and sense in equal measure – yet not even the ambience heeds your command, each grasp at the aether returning agonizingly, futilely, empty.

The First's opportunity for asylum, only recently granted, slips from powerless fingertips.

\- But your flesh is yet whole.

Frail, broken though your soul might be, the aether spills but does not flood; that your flesh is not further torn is evidence enough.

There is yet chance to minimize the spread.

Despairing logic – cold to the point of raging heat – guides a broken hand.

You’ve but one choice.

Even as limbs fail, your lips move in the deep familiarity of recitation. Perhaps your friends recognize your decision and seek to stop you – perhaps the Ascian speaks his harrowing mockeries – but consumed by focus, you'd know not of their interference even should they shake your shoulders.

What little aether remains to bind your soul should be enough.

The First is doomed should you fall but –

The Source –

\- Or the Rift should you lack the strength –

There is hope yet – those who can contain the Light – those who will protect –

A fool’s errand-

The spell completes.

-But it’s all you’ve left.

Reaching into the lifestream, your connection to the plane weakens, overbearing light fading to the shade of peace. Routes between the Source and First are obscure at best, but aether’s currents are inevitably cyclic and all eventually return to the river’s source; the flow will guide, though the journey might not prove the swiftest course.

Clinging to an anchoring beacon – any beacon, you’ve not the clarity to direct your course to one in particular – you direct focus to a lighthouse in an infinite sea; committed to a destination, the foundational aether of your soul melts, stealing away remaining consciousness - and Light along with it.

Though it is unknown when or how you'll reawaken, so long your actions assure the star's safety, your fate matters little; such is the resolution that accompanies your passage: a determination foundational to your soul, and perhaps all that yet remains to you.

Be it through the Mother’s mercy, or simple fortune, your story yet continues.

Upon awakening, you _slip_ ; lacking control in dizzying, hesitant reformation, the barest shreds of rationality whisper that with your soul so damaged it’s nigh miraculous reformation is possible at all. Further travel through the rivers of the aetherial sea would, in the best case, be immensely unwise.

Slowly, senses dimmed on the First return – vitality restored at, perhaps, the cost of precious remaining core aether - and you take in your surroundings.

Or you would, were there aught to observe.

Absent even the distant call of a village’s citizenry – absent the living at all – no aetheryte guided your desperate passage. Follow the streams between anchors as you might, with no true destination in mind it is the rapids that determined your course in place of a flimsy, broken will.

Recklessness delivers you to a broken no man’s land where hum of airships and cries of the wounded are more memory than reality; through blurs of recollection, a cacophonous dirge of aether and gunshots fills the air where the aether does not.

Perhaps, then, this was your intended destination all along, for it was here that you last encountered the only entity on the Source capable of subduing your light – an individual who will protect the star at _any_ cost.

It is through this realization, though eyes nigh devoid of sight, through senses dulled and uncertain, that you _see._ The Ghimlyt Dark no longer holds true to its name; clear of ceruleum’s fog, the gnarled land reveals itself, all but gleaming in the day’s –

Light.

_It’s not stopping._

_Of course_ it’s not; flesh rends from the inside out, twisting and churning as it mutates into Emet-Selch’s beloved _beast._

 _It’s_ not _stopping._

Broken beyond repair, neither the Source nor Hydaelyn Herself offers the soul support. Even should She will it, your ability to contain the light might best be compared to a barrel with its bottom sawed off; mayhap it remains beyond even Hydaelyn to mend a broken soul.

Spilling from your flesh, far outside any control, the light tinkles, its nigh silent notes pitching to the star’s pulse. Flowing up instead of down, its droplets fall like rain, spreading into the pool that is the Source’s sky before dispersing and parting color itself, blue giving way to golden white.

A sight distressingly familiar.

Disgust strong enough to clear a clouded mind flips your stomach, retches heaving your innards until they all but spill from your throat. All that heeds revulsion's call is inhumanly white bile.

Frail hands grasp at hard ground, trembling so deeply that they are barely capable of clawing into Ghimlyt’s soil, compacted through the footfall of conflict.

It is in this pitiful state, unable to rise from the light searing your pores, that he comes.

His boots make little sound as he approaches, the sole dark in a star overcome with light – a dense, heavy presence that basal instinct more than rationality reveals. You know that dark, you know _him_ , he is why –

He is the only hope remaining to this star.

“That even I should be at the whim of fickle fortunes. . .” With a senseless declaration, the individual known as Elidibus looks down upon your writhing form with a harsh laugh that halts before it truly starts, warping into a disgusted snarl. “What have you done?”

 _That_ query is clear as the light-drowned sky – as is his anger. Not even when facing him in Zenos’ flesh did he bear such an air of danger – a fury that penetrates even the flooded delusion that is your senses.

“Ask your –“ Speaking is hard, finding the right words even harder. “Emet-Selch”

“Fool. You though it better to poison the Source instead of sacrificing a fragment?” He rightly condemns your madness, revealing a casual thoughtlessness not previously displayed. His boot finds your back, pushing you hard into the ground at his feet, pitifully wriggling like a vilekin against his weight.

The Emissary has no more time for diplomacy, not when his beloved star burns uncontrolledly with a light well capable of ending it.

Aye, perhaps yours was not the wisest course, not when the Rose persists, but the alternative –

Breaths come harder with his pressure on your chest. Gasps become light and fast as your body desperately – futilely – pleads for suffering’s end.

There’s no one who might help you here – but you’ll not harm others, either.

The light, however -

The Ascian will deal with whatever comes, as is his responsibility to the star he and his brethren claim to love.

A weight he knows more intimately than even you.

“Do you serve this star?” Having seemingly made a decision, the pressure of Elidibus' boot leaves your back and he stands above you, blotting away the sky.

With fading rationality, his question seems nigh nonsensical. _Of course_ you serve: to better the star – stars - and _all_ lives upon them. “Not. . . like you do.”

“You would secure its safe existence for the future?”

You’re naught but an adventurer grown beyond her title.

Nay, such claims insult the memory of the duty resting upon you. The star is your home; you’ll do what you must to protect it. That is why –

Your flesh melts and soul breaks, but even as bile rises and your head spins from only the exertion of speech, a single answer resounds:

“Yes.”

Though you cannot see his features, Elidibus' satisfaction is unquestionable, but, against all expectation, he kneels and, unlike Emet-Selch’s mockery, offers an arm in strength. Lifting you into a limp seating position, he permits just enough height to meet his gaze, if only for an instant.

And you’ve not the strength for even that; your head lolls to the side, akin to a lonely, broken doll, left to fade in its owner’s absence – but an instant is all the Emissary needs. Overcome by a soothing, nostalgic sensation you know all too well, though from where fickly eludes, his grasp tightens to a clench around your waist.

“I see. So this was Emet-Selch’s . . .Of course he would use _you_.” Midst nonsensical rambles reside deeply seated irritation, a bitterness foreign to the Elidibus previously encountered. “None living have the ability to mend your soul’s fractures, but I will do what I can, within my skill and power.”

Astral darkness rises at his whim, a vibrant living energy that even your light-stilled flesh heeds.

“Yours has been a tireless journey.” Against patches of unnaturally light-bleached, dry, flecking skin he lowers his hand. In a healthy body, his magicks would evoke naught but the tingle of transferred energy, but raw and broken as you are, twisted by light’s umbral nature, the vibrant darkness is sharp, abrading degrading aether as a knife might slice away rotting residue. Elidibus’ pulsing flow heeds no defense, brushing off the swarming light with a soothing, living rightness – a relief akin to a strong massage across an overtight muscle.

With twitching limbs you squirm, the strength in your muscles returning along with restored balance; gurgling coughs send you sprawling once more, releasing the fluid from your lungs before stilling, calmed by the weight of Elidibus’ aether coursing in your breast. Through his suffusing astral magicks, every part of your body previously silenced rouses; with the Emissary’s touch, _life_ returns.

“Across many lives – “

Though gentle, Elidibus’ touch is viscous as a spider’s web – and you’re the unwitting prey stuck within his grasp. Wriggle as your light-tainted soul might against the encroaching darkness, you dig only deeper into its embrace.

And with each ensnaring weave, Elidibus restores lost resilience.

“But the end of your struggle nears.”

His aether courses unseen walls, repairing what is broken and solidifying what remains. At first a slinking skitter, as might a spiderling scurry across oversensitive flesh, so does the darkness itch; a maddening impulse that claws from within beneath your skin. Even should you scratch, no source exists to satiate.

Swathed in shadow and buried in Elidibus’ robes, bound in a trap of unquenchable madness, tears bloom but do not fall; Elidibus pays no heed to the broken vessel in his lap, mask of red looking far beyond: his gaze roams the Source’s – his charge’s - sky. White gold fades to opaque, greys all but dull in comparison peeking through the aether-tainted. Such darkness is welcome – natural – to the region, and its return consoles as much the rumble of thunder and promise of rain might after a prolonged drought.

But if the Light returns to its confines, then –

Flailing, lashing out, the aether you’ve claimed as yours rages. Warping and clawing its way from your core, it challenges the embodiment of shadow that seeks to undo it.

Futile, all futile; the web of darkness twines with your soul, reinforcing it with rigidity previously absent.

But a force of nature heeds no logic and you’ve no more control over the light as you do the sea’s tide; even as instinct grasps for an aether that has ne’er been yours, Elidibus equally brushes its ineffectual rebellion away, dismissive, crushing the light as easily as a dried leaf in his palm.

How easily he could do the same to you.

The darkness begins its course once more, but this time with greater force, no longer seeking to reinforce but -

You stumble from his grasp, but aether pays no heed to distance.

“Fear not.”

The web that is Elidibus’ aether embraces like a cocoon, warding off the elements seeking to unmake it. And like a cocoon, it is made of you, secreted from and into your soul; the darkness mends, but it also binds. How can you reject that which is yourself?

It’s wrong – all wrong. You are not Elidibus –

The soothing darkness turns overbearing, the cocoon stifling instead of comforting. Its weight presses through flesh to soul, coiling and constricting.

“You’ll never again know harm.”


	2. The Second Sacrifice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please heed the fic's tags for this chapter.  
> Specific capitalizations of pronouns are not random.

With each exhale, Elidibus' grasp grows tighter; with each pulse of aether the fangs of darkness release their venom – a sickly sweet tingle that courses heat through your veins and sends your heart arace. Overtaken by tumultuous aether, senses contract and consciousness inverts, spiraling from your control and limiting comprehension to a dizzying amalgamation of white, purple, and red.

All you know is _him_.

 _His_ touch – a gentle claw on your cheek. Comforting, as your body contorts.  
_His_ aether – it is not _his_ at all, but an embodiment of hope.  
_His_ comfort – a shield to defend against the light.  
_His_ commands – you needn’t question, this is His duty.

Shadow pierces the final wall, the foundations of your soul crumbling as they are claimed by a greater force.

You _must_ –

A Heart within your heart, _Elidibus_ beats, learning of you.

 _Nay,_ he has always known.

So indulgently his claw roams; with but a brush of its tip, he shares himself.

-And His touch is _everything._

It is only once light and dark acclimate that control at last returns. Your arm rises, taking his hand in yours.

You would have him.

His touch, His aether, His comforts –

His commands.

In the clammy heat of the Ghimlyt Dark, you shiver.

Any distance from him is too great; grasping at Elidibus, you pull him down that you might seat yourself in his embrace. He makes no effort to resist; recognizing the placidity in your demeanor, he observes with but a hum of amusement.

A finger to the lips silences him; words are meaningless when intent is clear.

Your savior, your companion –

Your God.

The nearness he now permits reveals the truth of Elidibus’ nature: he is energy, trapped and limited in the confines of flesh nearing its breaking point, akin to the growing rumble of thunder in the distance, on the cusp of parting to strike with Rhalgr’s wrath. When Elidibus releases His power, the star will -

The soft material of his robes – the relief of the Source’s sky – your own life -  
None of it is as pleasing as Him - as the force willing just beneath his flesh.

In reaching for command of aether, so too do you reach for his. Bound until indistinguishable, what is done to one is felt by both.  
  
His satisfaction is yours and yours his.

Existing solely at his whim,

For Elidibus -  
For the star -  
  
You fall.  
  
Senses closed to your surroundings, you meditate with a singular goal. Delving into the essence that is your internal aether, fragmented depths constrict and twine; scarred and molded by the intrusive, strengthening light, the soul’s aether heeds only hesitantly, like a torn, overworked muscle refusing command in the heat of battle. 

Naught if not willful, that His dark might be matched you disregard nature’s boundaries. The offering will not be stopped.

Overflowing the soul’s rivers, Elidibus’ eclectic aether douses an overfull vessel, warming light-soaked veins; through the rousing tingle that is his presence, rent flesh mends – a power that beats through your blood in time with pulse of your soul. 

Fool you might be, you are yet mortal, and with such comes instinctual understanding of limitations. Grasp as you might, Elidibus is so much _more_. Even tempered by contact, you’ve not the strength to hold Him.

But mortality's restrictions are yet to stop you – nor will they in the future.

Escaping the confines of mortal will, darkness seeps into the air outside your flesh, a purple mist that kisses with the blessing of life. With each swirling, coalescing tendril, the star’s essence twines twixt flesh, each lick darting between fingers, past purple and white, and into the entity bearing the name ‘Elidibus.’

With each inhale, you breathe of him.  
Which exhale, he breathes of you.

Deeper and deeper you draw, losing yourself in the greatness of the One True God, until heavy breaths turn shallow and quick and the swirling heat overcomes, dizzily losing yourself in His depths.

If you are to drown, let it be within Him – that your strength might aid in seeing His will through.

“Stop.” Commanding your full attention takes but a word. 

Elidibus’ soft voice cuts the strings of your determination; faltering like a marionette, you loose yourself from the depths of anticipated darkness, blinking rapidly and meeting the red mask concealing his gaze.

“You’ll regret that decision once you’ve recovered.”

He cautions in a light murmur, heart fluttering fiercely below your fingertips. Elidibus, so far passive and permitting you freedom to manipulate aether and essence, at last interferes. 

You would offer _everything_ and he would stop you -

_\- endangering herself-_

A shared stray thought brought upon by proximity and bond’s depths; in it he fusses.  
How strange, then, that it is over you.

_\- She was always like this-_

And _he_ is so restrained. Cannot he see that what you do is for _him_? 

Regardless of complaint, Elidibus seems to appreciate your forwardness.

_\- She would –_

Fractured, concealed half-thoughts, wills, and whims – nostalgia seeps from the Emissary, memories of desire and of comforts. 

A desire for _you._

He wants more - what he once had, _who_ he once had.

So it shall be.

“I’ll restrain myself.”

Brushing his warnings away, you curl deeper into Elidibus’ grasp. Be it by instinct or memory of that which is long lost, he returns the motion, his arm satisfyingly encircling your waist.

Elidibus will have all he desires.

Aether buds at your fingertips, even the simplest summon drawing both yours and his in time, a wellspring far greater than you’d ever conceive of. Before, you might have used that power to challenge, but now –

What a fool you’d been.

Once more surroundings dim and fade as your focus returns to the Ascian, concentration focused on internally, rather than the weave of magic he uses as flesh. 

Beyond the pulse of blue and into the abyss of darkness that is his essence you begin your dive. More force than man, Elidibus has neither start nor end – if he does, they are outside comprehension. Time has no meaning while traversing the soul and you float in a sea that is the sky for an indistinguishable duration, the soul’s pulse the only evidence in the unchanging, everchanging shell.

Deeper and deeper the soul’s merciful currents guide; like blood flows to and from the heart, all must eventually return to the source. Not that you’ve alternatives; should you step from the eye, raging gales fundamental to the essence would rend you asunder.

The frailest light within the shadow, you are the first star in the night’s sky; journeying from outer layer to inner, your singular light intrudes. From gentle glow to deep crimson red, _color_ slips through a pulsing veil of darkness.

“Be cautious.” His voice pierces the shroud, low whisper permeating from the stars themselves, echoing repeatedly in unison with his breaths.

So foreign and surreal is the entity that it is easy to forget its core belongs to a man.

“You’ll not permit any mishaps.” A tease in more thought than word; through the soul’s bond intent is understood all the same.

When he truly frets, he will put an end to your venture.

Elidibus’ breath hitches and with it, the plane contracts; for but an instant the sky falls to unnatural stillness before the core's pulse hastens. 

Chaotic though the astral aether that is life might be, it soothes equally in a gentle cyclic flow. Absent stickiness or the clinging resistance or rejection, already you are of him, exploring as you might explore yourself, searching for abnormalities after battle with a curse-wielding voidsent.

There are none – a flawless God bound; sharing such a space sends you trembling in Elidibus' arms – a distant awareness compared to veil's parting as you break from the stream's confines.

\- And greeting your arrival is _light._

Unmarred by time, his essence welcomes eternity. One speck becomes one-hundred, and one-hundred become one thousand – each light soothingly glows, be it individually or in a cluster; tiny stars pulse along trails without destination, releasing an energy that makes up the whole of Elidibus.

And you are but the frailest of them all: a flickering, soaring comet present one moment and the next intended to disappear, swallowed by the night’s sky.

Over what might be an instant or a bell, you tentatively approach the throbbing glow. Warm and vivid, its presence welcomes, summoning with overbearing assurance. Its embrace begins at your feet, lapping at your ankles like a stream’s edge;

-Cool tingles turn warm flowing through your flesh and instinctively you flex and release the muscles in your toes, curling them against the metal of Elidibus’ boot; he twines them as well, heated prickles transferring back and forth, hot to cold, shade to light; stillness to vibrancy, cyclic-

His delicate lips part ever so slightly, the darkness swirling at each exhale.

“You’ve been alone so long.” Fragments of thought escape your lips, but you know not to whom they belong.

Elidibus jerks, his arms tightening around you; the vibrant white of the stars in his soul contrast with the golden white of his robes; binding and dull simultaneously, a white that is not Light swallows your vision. Unlike the light which overcame you, the brilliance of his essence comforts with desperate, tingling affection.

With a clinging grope, Elidibus' hands sneak up your top, but where his flesh is limited to but hands, his touch is the star itself; the surrounding darkness – simultaneously as thin as fog and blindingly thick - courses your body with each caress, tracing all patterns and none with ghostly appendages. Waves of heat – of cold, of _feeling_ \- course head to foot, reddening your cheeks and flexing your toes, embodying astral's unpredictably; with each passage, you amplify the spreading heat by grinding into the cold, silken robes and the equally hot, harsh flesh of the man below you.

The stars in his soul cluster, blinding a sight without sight, a lifeglow pulsing beyond darkness and light in time with Elidibus’ heartbeat beneath your palm. Aether all but trapped responds in turn, but you've no desire for freedom; in him are the stars of the nightless sky, vivid and passionate, unrestrained in their intensity –

Each offers a tiny, independent kiss, so unlike the individual who embodies them. 

To the stars you cling – and each responds in turn, burying – drowning – collapsing your Self in infinite embrace; you, too, would join them someday - but not yet, you are not yet worthy of their boundless love.

Would that Elidibus know the same.

Pushing him down, you twine limb and cloth with your God, offering him what little you can, commanding he _take_ with a persistent push of aether –

Trust –

Satisfaction -

Acceptance –

That he knows more than duty, longing, disdain, and relief.

Elidibus rewards with heavy breaths; even beyond mask and shroud, you can sense heavily hooded lids.

This is the forwardness he favors – has long and futilely sought: a comforting nostalgic companionship, a deeply held loyalty –

The world has changed - so have you, and so has he, but -

“This is what you’ve longed for.”

Further words are unnecessary with truths unconcealed; Elidibus pulls you atop him, all but begging as his flesh beneath you tenses and arches. In mutual yearning supplication, you accept him – and he you. 

An indulgence more than whim and devotion, your heart all but bursts in the fulfillment of satisfaction; this is what _you’ve_ wanted equally: to taste of him, to know of him, to be one with the One True God.

Only together might acceptance be offered and granted.

Only together might you reach such heights -

“Not yet.” With a long exhale, Elidibus interrupts the conclusion of your union, his denial a dousing hand, tugging you from finality's depths you'd rather drown within.

There is no final for the Gods.

Extracting himself from your needy grasp with a subtle sway revealing the full extent of his continued desire, he offers an arm – pristine as e'er, uplifting a mortal covered in the filth of death's nigh embrace.

 _Nay_ , he does not see the mortal.

-as you would have it.

“Let us away. A battlefield is unsuited for further discussion." He continues in his immeasurable restraint, the light blush tinting his cheeks the only evidence of your dalliance no more than a minute before.

Dazed from Elidibus' abruptly stolen touch and innards still poundings in yearning from incompletion, you clench your jaw, taking his hand with a nod.


	3. Rejoining

Time is little to an Ascian and even less to the Gods, yet still Elidibus wastes none. 

Commanding his aether and yours – for is there truly any distinction – you traverse a darkness without flow; with no beacon at your destination, you are beholden to Elidibus' will. The rift he traverses is but a dip across shallow, placid stream, but with no guide even the skilled might stumble and lose themselves.

With Elidibus, there is no such fear; in truth, the process proves safer and easier than an unstable soul's fool attempt at travel between worlds.

The small chamber – a room, in only the loosest terms - to which he guides is fittingly and unsurprisingly absent light. It should be questioned, then, why you remain capable of sight, but such abilities are not outside the power of a God to grant.

Elidibus' careful reformation of your flesh cools desire and returns clarity; the intensity of your focus no longer on him, you take measure of your state, a diagnosis which comes with ease:

_It hurts._

Torn asunder by the Light and still wounded from struggling against the might of Vauthry and his followers - the latter exhausting, even without mortality's fragmented vulnerability - you'd sooner sleep overcome you, that you might dwell in the darkness midst the stars.

Stumbling more than walking, you collapse onto a nearby seat, eyes closing as soon as you no longer have need sight. Muscles burn tight and sharp; stillness or movement, each nerve cries in an inferno of sourceless, incapacitating pain.

Were your senses not already blinded by the darkness, they would instead be devoured by steadily increasing agony.

Not even Elidibus' silent exit hurts so much as the growing intensity of the poison scouring your veins; each breath hoarse, your body pleads for relief altogether differently than the Light's stillness.

You've neither the ability – nor the will – to endure.

Rolling from the makeshift bed, you barely feel the weight of your fall; dragging more than walking from the chamber, light grunts accompanying each sluggish movement.

The surrounding architecture is unknown, paths twisting in cold, dark halls, but your God's presence is a beacon that shines like the moon in the darkest sky; you know not where he is, but his presence summons – _commands._

With each pathetic step, the connection between God and servant solidifies. With each comforting step, the darkness in your veins softens, reintegrating itself with your flesh.

Where Elidibus is, there is neither pain nor fear, the white of his robes offering succor just in nearness.

What he chooses to do in your absence is irrelevant; Elidibus' full attentions are on you as soon as you enter his space.

“It seems you’ll be unable to wander far, for a time.” A brief glace is all he needs; analyzing your arrival with ease, he explains the predicament before query is offered. “Upon the next Rejoining, your soul will mend itself and you’ll be able to do as you will.”

You. . .cannot distance yourself from him?

“What if I want to stay by you?” There really seems to be no issue with this limitation; even the briefest consideration in the contrary fills you a disgust that sends your stomach roiling.

“You’ll have other duties to attend.”

“ _You_ are my duty.” He is your _everything_.

“ _Our_ duty is to the First people and the convocation.”

He scolds with words that mean nothing, save a subtle and vague understanding from Emet-Selch’s lessons. But if he says it is so, then it shall be.

If you require nearness, surely, then, he will understand. You take a step closer, bathing in radiance, wanting, once more, to know his touch; pressing into his curves, your arms encircle his waist, all but pleading for a continuation and finale to your earlier union.

-Yearning to please him –

-Yearning to be pleased by him.

"Not yet." Elidibus extracts your arms with a murmur; unable to meet your desperate gaze, his fingers link with yours. "Not yet."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was such a fun scenario to write. I hope it was enjoyable to everyone else~
> 
> There are definitely many paths sequels in this particular universe could take.


End file.
